Leytonstone Tube Station Attacker Muhiddin Mire Sentenced To Life Imprisonment For Knife Rampage

Muhiddin Mire, 30, who tried to behead a musician during a knife rampage at Leytonstone Tube station has been sentenced at the Old Bailey to life imprisonment with a minimum of eight and a half years.

Metropolitan Police/PA Wire

Muhiddin Mire

Mire carried out at the attack on December 5 last year, shouting about Syria before he grabbed a passing 56-year-old musician, Lyle Zimmerman, who later received treatment from a passing doctor.

Video surfaced of the incident shortly after the attack, in which a passerby shouted to Somalian-born Mire: “You ain’t no Muslim bruv.”

Mire, who downloaded propaganda from the so-called Islamic State before the attack, was convicted of Zimmerman’s attempted murder.

In a statement read to the court, Zimmerman said: “I have been left with a scar on my neck which I am aware of only because it pulls when I use my voice but is otherwise superficial and healing well...

“I am somewhat more cautious about interacting with strangers since the attack - overall I have not been significantly traumatised by the attack psychologically.”

Jonathan Brady/PA Archive

A police cordon at the scene of the attack

Mire has a history of mental illness and psychosis, including the paranoid belief that he was being persecuted for his religion and stalked by MI5 and MI6, the court heard.

Mire has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and suffered his first episode of psychosis in 2006.

At an earlier hearing, Dr Shaun Bhattacherjee, a consultant psychiatrist treating Mire at Broadmoor Hospital, said he was “clearly mentally ill at the time of the events” and poses a “very severe” risk to the public.

Cannabis use made a “significant” contribution to what was “probably” a case of paranoid schizophrenia, according to consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Philip Joseph.

He also suggested that although Mire’s state of psychosis might have had an influence on the decision to carry out the stabbing, the link was not definite.

Mire, who lived alone in Leytonstone, declared he was going to “spill blood” for his “Syrian brothers” when he carried out the attack.

Mire has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and suffered his first episode of psychosis in 2006, the court heard.

He apparently first viewed IS material on his phone around three years before the attack.